... The Texas Minute ... Good morning, Contrary to the fashionable assertions of some Christian influencers, all law is an expression of morality. Will it be the whims of tyrants for their own pleasure, or the precepts of God for our good? More on that thought below. This is the Texas Minute for Friday, July 25, 2025. – Michael Quinn Sullivan ![]() Lawmakers Eye $13B in Federal Refunds for Property Tax Relief
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New interviews with REAL TEXANS every Sunday! ![]() Friday ReflectionIn the greatest hits of “truisms that are lies,” few are as tiresome as a line that undergirds much of our cultural rot with the uproarious approval of Christian influencers. The lie goes that “you can’t legislate morality.” It is a lie told to justify blatant sin and excuse a weakening of cultural standards. It gets the soft imprimatur of upwardly mobile pastors eager to enter the rarified social and political climes into which they would otherwise not be accepted. And it is a lie that, if told quickly enough, won’t be questioned by the flocks they fleece on Sundays—and might even be repeated. The notion is absolute hogwash. It fails every possible measure of history, rationality, and scripture. But if you listen to the hip pastors on YouTube and TikTok, you’ll find it embedded in the woke view of the world they must adopt if they are to be loved by the God-hating masses whose approval they seem so desperate to earn. For clergy, it signals a fashionable lifestyle outside the dreary doldrums of their ecclesiastical labors. It serves as a signal that they are comfortable with casual parishioners shoving the Truth of God into a Sunday-sized box. They won’t actually say that … on the record, at least. So they say, instead, that “morality cannot be legislated.” It sounds very philosophical, as befitting someone who spent seven years in higher education. It sounds like it might have been written by an ancient (non-Christian) philosopher—translated from Greek, of course. The lie makes it easy to be loved by the God-hating elite, whose approval seems more important to them than God’s own. In fact, all law is a matter of morality. The only question is if that law is in keeping with, or foreign to, the moral precepts of holy scripture. From rape to murder, and fraud to defamation, the law of the land is a reflection of the collective understanding of moral principles of the people who live there. No law has ever been passed or imposed—here or anywhere—that is separate and apart from the moral beliefs of the lawgivers. Every action taken by a legislative body is a moral statement, good or bad. Every single law is a moral declaration, for better or worse. I will give the devil his due; all well-told lies have a thimble of truth. It is true that a law cannot “make” a man moral … but that is never the point. If all men were moral, we would not need laws. So while passing a law does not make men moral, the law does temper men’s immoral impulses with the threat of judicial consequence in the present. Romans 13 describes secular government as “an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.” So, please, will you tell us again about how we don’t legislate morality? Dousing oneself with perfume can mask the stench of unwashed filth, but it is no substitute for being clean. Yet for the casual passerby on the street, the perfume will be preferable to the odor left in a foul man’s wake. The same is true for the law. A man wishing to violate the person or property of his neighbors has a heart problem that is not cleansed merely by adherence to local and state ordinances, but the threat of legal punishment makes life in the community more pleasant. Let me close with a bit of uncomfortable clarity: No one actually believes morality cannot be legislated. Those who proclaim that lie just don’t want legislation based on the morality of God as enunciated in the Bible. They want to substitute the life-giving morality of God with the self-serving pleasures of fallen men. Divorcing legislative action from moral principles is the first step down the road to violent serfdom. When we set aside God’s wisdom, we embrace tyrants’ whims. As a self-governing people, we must each be increasingly diligent in ensuring the laws of our republic are in keeping with moral precepts set forth by God for our own good. ![]() Quote-Unquote"When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law." – Frédéric Bastiat ![]() ![]() |